Mitesh Chauhan
October 9, 2018

The cloud holds a great deal of promise for enterprises. As SaaS applications become commonplace, and IoT begins to be incorporated across a range of operations and activities, we're seeing an exponential growth in usage of cloud service solutions. The cloud can be the enabler for the scale and processing power that data-intensive applications require, offering the flexibility and financial attractiveness that give enterprises a competitive edge.

For all the potential that cutting-edge applications and devices offer, nothing serves to dampen enthusiasm more than running into performance issues. Slow response speeds, connectivity drop outs and data bottlenecks are just some of the issues a poorly configured hybrid cloud environment can encounter. As demands for cloud-based applications to fulfil business critical needs increase, the consequences of inadequate network performance can have a profound impact.

Specifically, there are five common cloud underperformance issues that can hamper seamless enterprise adoption:

1. Reliance on public Internet

The public Internet presents both an opportunity and a threat for businesses. Its pervasive reach offers a cost-effective means for engaging with scores of customers, regardless of temporal or geographical boundaries. For connecting with business-critical workloads, however, the Internet contains a range of performance risks. Using public Internet as a cloud gateway can mean that performance is limited by traffic and throughput impediments, which can hamper the effectiveness of applications right at the time they're needed most. This issue can become even more severe if your organisation seeks to apply security precautions to the company's Internet, such as VPNs, which can cut throughput in half. Governance and regulatory requirements may also require secure connectivity in order to reduce an organisation’s exposure via the public internet.

2. Experiencing high application latency

Businesses run on speed. Customers expect nothing less, and each moment lost has revenue implications. Your business may invest heavily in enterprise applications designed to give you an edge, but these will only work at their maximum potential if application performance allows. Housing your cloud infrastructure in an isolated private data centre commonly results in low-density connectivity and latency issues caused by the distance between data centres and interconnecting services. These latency issues slow down internal operations, and ultimately impact customer outcomes. If enterprise applications struggle to deal with peak loads, this can result in the business suffering revenue loss, damage to their reputation and failing to meet their objectives of moving to the cloud.

3. Lack of integration between applications

Applications running in isolation results in information siloes. The greater value for enterprises comes where applications are able to 'talk to each other' and integrate seamlessly to create business outcomes, such as applications linked at the back end via APIs. This is harder to do where applications are stored in different locations, such as some applications being held locally while others live on cloud servers. Gartner predicts that through 2018, 90 per cent of organisations will lack an application integration strategy, resulting in integration disorder, greater complexity and cost.

4. An internal skills gap

One of the most common issues in building and maintaining a cloud environment is complexity. The more complex the enterprise requirements, the greater the need for specialist skills to cut through this complexity. Cloud effectiveness can therefore be hindered by the lack of internal cloud expertise to manage critical tasks such as performance, network, security and storage, meaning that the enterprise's cloud environment is not optimised to intended outcomes. This can make accessing and running cloud applications and services a cumbersome and ultimately frustrating experience for staff and customers alike.

5. Performance being hampered by legacy applications

In building a cloud environment, it is commonly found that not all applications are suitable for the cloud. Some legacy applications are better suited to run on-premise rather than in a public cloud environment. It’s essential when relying on legacy infrastructure and complex environments to have a seamlessly integrated network infrastructure to cope with traffic prioritisation, otherwise performance issues and cost can flare up right at the times you need your applications to be firing.

High performance in Colocated Hybrid Cloud

While these cloud performance issues are common, they are not insurmountable. It’s possible to solve these issues permanently through Interxion's Colocated Hybrid Cloud offering. Using a high capacity network of 50 data centres across 13 European cities, Interxion's facilities offer simple to use, layer 2 private connectivity solutions to enhance cloud performance, along with a range of carriers to improve connectivity options. This means avoiding the vagaries of accessing public cloud via the internet entirely, and having the network infrastructure in place to meet the most demanding cloud workloads.

Overcoming everyday performance issues gives enterprises the power to adopt next-generation applications, fulfilling the cloud's promise as a business edge.

Does your cloud performance need a boost? Find out how Interxion's Colocated Hybrid Cloud solution can bring high performance to your cloud environment.

Troubleshooting cloud performance – Five common issues